Homes trio move up to House-on-the-Hill

Three housing associations which provide homes for more than 18,000 people in England and Scotland are moving their IT services to a higher level by introducing Help Desk software from House-on-the-Hill (www.houseonthehill.com).

Severnside, Eastlands and Argyll Community Housing Associations are the latest organisations in the sector to install the Manchester-based specialist supplier’s SupportDesk solution. Ian Pritchard, Systems and Technology Manager of Severnside Housing which provides accommodation in over 5,000 homes across Shropshire, said the new system will genuinely revolutionise the way our IT team operates with call resolution. SupportDesk, which replaces TopDesk Lite, allows us to underpin the whole of our IT support service, he added. Severnside made the change because it wanted to move to ITIL (the IT Infrastructure Library internationally accepted guidelines for Best Practice in IT service management)-based monitoring of service level agreements and key performance indicators and introduce workflow to increase efficiency within its IT team. The tool is being used by all Severnside staff with access to a PC.

Other anticipated benefits include a consistent approach to call logging and resolution, and greater visibility of the team’s work through production of monthly statistics. House-on-the-Hill’s customer support had been excellent, Pritchard said. They have been very supportive and so far have delivered exactly what we are looking for. Argyll Community Housing Association (ACHA) introduced SupportDesk after sharing another tool, Heat, with its local authority’s help desk. Of all the other suppliers we looked at, House-on-the-Hill was the one which could fill all our requirements. said IT Officer Steven McNeill Scotland’s eighth largest housing association, ACHA provides more than 5,000 affordable homes for rent, houses 17% of the population of Argyll and Bute and employs some 185 staff. It will use SupportDesk to log calls from users, enable tracking of all hardware and software, and give users the facility to log their own calls.

The solution has also been acquired by Eastlands Homes, a housing association formed in 2003 to take over and improve 2,800 former council homes around what is now Manchester City’s football stadium. Most recently council tenants elsewhere in Manchester voted to have their homes transferred to Eastlands. The 5,300 properties transferred to the organisation at the end of March 2009.

Iain Broadhead, Managing Director House-on-the-Hill commented: More and more users are feeling completely at home with SupportDesk as a focal point of their IT departments. We are proud that these three housing associations have entrusted us with their business. This builds further on our excellent reputation in the UK housing sector.